Israel and Zionism: fundamental

Just as my book comes out, with its account of my run-in with Jewish religious nationalism, what happens? A synagogue in Schenectady mounts a program boosting the very nationalism that I write about in the book. And not just any synagogue, but the same one whose rabbi led the charge against me when I returned from my trip to Jerusalem last year. It’s almost too good to be true.

Theodor Herzl, father of Zionism, 1860-1904.

But there it is, a series of eight video-lectures, spread over eight weeks, plumping not for old Yahweh up in the sky but for the nation-state of Israel here on earth. “The program will help participants to articulate why Israel and Zionism can and should be fundamental to our Jewish identity,” according to a statement on the synagogue’s website. Fundamental — not incidental, not tangential, not optional. Israel, the nation-state, and Zionism, the movement conceived in the late 19th century positing that European and Russian Jews have the right and even the obligation to hie themselves to the land of Palestine and establish a “Jewish State,” as the founding father, Theodor Herzl, titled the founding document. Not move to Palestine as neighbors or as equals with the people already living there, but go there to maneuver those people out, if possible, or at the very least outnumber them, so the state would be, in its very conception, not a land of equality for all its citizens but rather a land where one tribe is supreme, by design and by definition. An “ethnocracy,” as internal critics call it today, even if one wearing a veil of democracy.

Indeed, one of the topics of the program on offer at the synagogue is “How do we create and maintain a Jewish democracy?” which is a revealing question in itself, much like the question that the Boers of South Africa might have asked: How do we create and maintain a white democracy? It can’t be easy! But we’ll do it!

Some of the other topics are: “What are the benefits of Jewish sovereignty?” (They must be many, if not necessarily to the Arabs and Bedouins who lived in Palestine previously and considered it their land.) “How should a Jewish state exercise military power ethically?” (Maybe by dropping white phosphorous on recalcitrants?) “Why should American Jews care about Israel?” (Because it’s fundamental to our identity, that’s why.)

This is the same synagogue that displayed on its walls a poster of an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Palestinian militants in Gaza and held prisoner, unharmed, for five years, and another poster of “hundreds of Israeli citizens murdered by homicide bombers,” without, however, any corresponding recognition of the much greater number of Palestinians militants held captive by Israel and the much greater number of Palestinian civilians, including more than 1,400 children, killed by the Israeli military. Michael Lerner, a liberal Jewish thinker, calls it “a new form of idolatry.”

And why is it necessary to beat the nationalist or tribal drums just now? Well, according to the Jerusalem-based Shalom Hartman Institute, which is the source of the videos used in this “iEngage” program, it’s because Jews today, given their “political, economic and cultural success,” not to mention the “military power and prowess” of Israel, find it harder and harder to buy into “the ‘traditional’ Israel narrative [of] the precariousness of Jewish survival.” They’ve got it good, and Israel is practically a military superpower, so they’re becoming indifferent! Which we can’t have! So we must reshape the “narrative” in a way that “gives meaning to Jewish statehood and sovereignty,” per the institute. One thing we must not do, it is understood, is abandon the idea of an exclusivist nation. The Jewish state — and Zionist doctrine — must remain fundamental.

What exactly does the supremely important, almost deified nation-state of Israel look like from the inside? One little example caught my eye the other day as I was browsing the Israeli newspaper Haaretz online. It was a story of a kind that alas is not unusual if one reads the Israeli press regularly, as I have the depressing habit of doing, though the daily grinding down and humiliating of Arabs that it represents gets nowhere near the attention that the far rarer Arab attacks on Jewish settlers and soldiers get, especially in the American press. It seems an Arab bus driver, citizen of Israel, made the mistake of rebuking a Hasidic Jewish passenger for inserting a bus ticket too aggressively in an electronic reader. The passenger and four companions, all young men, thereupon berated the driver as a “dirty Arab,” among other insults, and continued to berate and harass him throughout their ride, until, upon arriving at their destination, they pulled him out of his seat and beat him up, leaving him with head injuries and two broken teeth. Five of the young fellows were arrested, all apparently from a nearby Hassidic community (They’re the ones with the black hats and coats and the sidecurls, who look so quaint and harmless in this country). We don’t yet know the outcome, but in other similar cases, even if there are criminal convictions, the penalties are invariably light. Perhaps this incident – and it is by no means extraordinary – could be discussed at the synagogue when the topic is “Which values should a Jewish state embody?” Perhaps the congregants could get together and send the driver a get-well card. That would be a nice gesture, reflective of values worth caring about. His name is Shahdi Hadar, and he lives, or at least works, in Tiberias.

In any event, I am delighted that this program is being held to coincide with release of my book. If I were a believer I would light a candle to give thanks.

12 Responses

Isn’t it fascinating that “Freedom of the Press” is freer when the reporter is NOT PAID. I recommend Upton Sinclair’s book “The Brass Check” (available for free download at Google Books) to confirm this. Kudos to the T-U for offering Carl this forum!

I can only imagine the types of irrationally angry responses you’ll get to this post, but kudos for bringing to light a rarely exposed contradiction in foreign policy.

The idea of the U.S. supporting Israel from an external standpoint is one thing, but the line should be drawn there. Yes, Israel should have our support to protect it from existential, external threats from its neighbors but given the rest of Israel’s activities, things should stop there. But it’s an unconscionable hypocrisy that the U.S. has for generations supported Israel’s apartheid government and domestic policy that has most of the rest of the world rightly outraged.

You will probably hear a lot of angry responses of blind support and exaggerated claims of the internal threats to Israel that are made to justify its racist police-state treatment of gentiles, but. However, none will be able to justify why South Africa under apartheid did not deserve American support of its policy and how ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land by way of “settlements” is at all acceptable.

I think it is important to understand that the core of the Zionist plan is of a foreign minority (European Jews) coming to a distant land and starting a democracy which they are able to rule only after keeping out the native majority people, which now consists of almost 5 million people, the largest refugee population in the world – a huge war crime because it is clearly stated in the Geneva Conventions that following the cessation of fighting (signing of the Armistice Agreements) civilians have the right to return to their homes. Not allowing them to return is an example of ethnic cleansing. Then it is important to understand that the Zionist idea of a “Jewish State” is a formula for discrimination, and this has happened with extensive, well-documented discrimination in Israel in government decision-making and funding, land ownership, immigration and citizenship, and military benefits, which leads to discrimination in education, housing, family finances, etc. In a true democracy the government is totally neutral and equally a servant of all citizens irregardless of color, religion, etc. And then there is the aggression of the occupation which the settlements prove is not really about defense. On and on the Zionist plan has proven to be a plan of oppression and exploitation and abuse.